All of them get paid to coach. Some of them get paid to choreograph. If some of their students are skating, how is it possible that they are not in a conflict of interest? And worse, is it not, when there are only 3 members of a panel. And the ISU does not give them a yearly stipend. They live on their coaching/choreographying/TV commentating/Finnish program running businesses, not on the ISU dime.

More, all of them will have their tastes and ideas influenced by the countries they grew up in, that they live in, and that they trained in. This is great when you have a sizable judging panel, but one does not have to postulate any crookedness to see that 3 is too few on a panel, given how wide a world this is, even in the small world of skating.

All of them get paid to coach. Some of them get paid to choreograph. If some of their students are skating, how is it possible that they are not in a conflict of interest? And worse, is it not, when there are only 3 members of a panel. And the ISU does not give them a yearly stipend. They live on their coaching/choreographying/TV commentating/Finnish program running businesses, not on the ISU dime.

More, all of them will have their tastes and ideas influenced by the countries they grew up in, that they live in, and that they trained in. This is great when you have a sizable judging panel, but one does not have to postulate any crookedness to see that 3 is too few on a panel, given how wide a world this is, even in the small world of skating.

Doris - I agree with you with regards to the tech panel. It's numbers are too small and I would argue that even with the number being small - as a group they are not consistent given last year's GP series...

All of them get paid to coach. Some of them get paid to choreograph. If some of their students are skating, how is it possible that they are not in a conflict of interest? And worse, is it not, when there are only 3 members of a panel. And the ISU does not give them a yearly stipend. They live on their coaching/choreographying/TV commentating/Finnish program running businesses, not on the ISU dime.

More, all of them will have their tastes and ideas influenced by the countries they grew up in, that they live in, and that they trained in. This is great when you have a sizable judging panel, but one does not have to postulate any crookedness to see that 3 is too few on a panel, given how wide a world this is, even in the small world of skating.

Also, I think if you're married to a federation head, you should not be judging, let alone part of the tech panel.

What is rather interesting, is this is the final time we may see some of these judges, since judges at the ISU championships are selected and drawn according to the prior season’s participants. For example, there will be an Austrian judge at Worlds 2013 because there was a skater from Austria at Worlds 2012; however, there will probably be no skaters from Austria at Worlds 2013, due to the new TES requirements, so there will be no Austrian judges at Worlds 2014. This is true of several countries on the list. The main outcome of TES, apart from saving money and spectator time, is there will be a significantly more limited judges' pool, and many more of the judges will have "skin in the game" so to speak.

What is rather interesting, is this is the final time we may see some of these judges, since judges at the ISU championships are selected and drawn according to the prior season’s participants. For example, there will be an Austrian judge at Worlds 2013 because there was a skater from Austria at Worlds 2012; however, there will probably be no skaters from Austria at Worlds 2013, due to the new TES requirements, so there will be no Austrian judges at Worlds 2014. This is true of several countries on the list. The main outcome of TES, apart from saving money and spectator time, is there will be a significantly more limited judges' pool, and many more of the judges will have "skin in the game" so to speak.

Thanks for the info - this is just so depressing - it's bad enough that we already have a small pool of judges and now this...hmmm if this is the case - they need to make this judges accountable and forget the anonymity portion - but I know that won't happen...and god knows how the team event in Sochi will be judged...